Anti-narcotics duo arrives on St Barts

On December 28, Françoise Beal took her post at the St Barts gendarmerie, accompanied by Larko, a 3-year-old German shepherd. The 35-year-old arrived the West Indies at the beginning of September, but had to wait three months in Guadeloupe after her house on the island was uninhabitable post-Irma.

On New Year’s Eve, the duo performed a simple prevention operation. And although Larko, who weighs 35 kilos, found no narcotics, the objective was to make themselves known, and to show the local population that a gendarme dog is once again present on the island.

Before moving to the West Indies, Françoise Beal was a member of the Surveillance and Intervention Platoons of the Gendarmerie (PSIG) Saber in Rambouillet. With another detection dog, Elton, she intervened to find the Kouachi brothers, on the run after the Charlie Hebdo attack, before they were located in Dammartin-en-Goële.